In case you didn't know it:

I have the pretties daughters in the world. I just pinned up some new photos of Vendela and Valeria and though Vendela looks a little funny (she's not good at having her photo taken) they are so pretty. And mine and I love them.

A book on 16th c. woodcuts

I just picked up Peasants, warriors and wives by Keith Moxley. I found it through a reference in Mellinkoff and thought it would be about the middle ages. Unfortunately for me it was about german 16th c. woodcuts so I have no use for it. It may however be interesting to some of you.

Tudor ideas

Tudor ideas.

I have been thinking a lot about my plans for a Tudor dress. Not the wool dress with the giant beret, I’m pretty clear what I’m going to do with that one, when I find the right fabric.
No it’s for the noble gown. I’ve always liked the gowns in Holbein’s sketch of Thomas More’s family. It is important here to look at the sketch and not the later copies of the now lost painting, like this. If you look at the sketch all the women that have the open laced gown are pregnant. Two women, one sitting to the right and one standing to the left aren’t pregnant (at least visibly) and also do not have the open gown, but gowns with closed bodices. On the left you can’t see much, but the woman on the right seems to have an either back-laced gown, which is unlikely, or a gown that has a plastron that’s pinned to the side, like in the famous Jane Seymour portrait. So, my theory is that these are the same type of gown, with and without plastrons, that we see how they looked under the plastron.
Since your belly grows much more than you breasts it is likely that the gown originally had a triangular opening that closed at the waist but was open at the neck (or more accurately: bosom). A slit in the skirt made it possible to get into and accommodated the growing belly.
In earlier portraits, like this of Catherine of Aragon and this of Agniete van den Rijne you see the edges of a kirtle, or something, that don't meet. On both Catherine and Agniete you can see that they lean inwards so that they will meet at the waist. That makes it at least four layers that they’re wearing: A shift, a kirtle or tunic under the kirtle/under gown with the triangular front opening and then a gown, which is front-closed in Agniete’s case and lacks visible closing on Catherine’s portrait.
At first I thought that that the gowns in the More sketch were this type of kirtle/under gown, but that is not possible because of the sleeves, the gowns in the sketch have the typical huge Tudor sleeves. Sleeves which are on the other, outer gown on the Catherine and Agniete portraits. So I thought: there is some time between these portraits (and Agniete’s is Dutch, but I don’t think that matters that much). Maybe they also though it was cumbersome with four layers, or five if you include a corset and changed the under gown into the outer gown, by adding the plastron and putting the large sleeves on it. It could have something to do with the introduction of the corset maybe, that all these layers were used to lift the bust and give a smooth line, but that they weren’t needed when the corset appeared. But that is just idle speculation. About the corset I mean, the rest seems pretty plausible to me.
But does it seem plausible to you?

Talking about Tudor

I found this lovely picture at De Koninklijke Bibliotheek. You have to go "list of KB resources" and then to medieval manuscripts and then either to manuscript KB, 133 D 11 or go to highlights were it is in the section with pictures of the labours of the months. It's picture 5. She has sleeves that are lined either with black damask or black patterned velvet! Isn't that cool?